Kolkata:
A team of scholars from the English department of the Vidyasagar University has travelled through one tribal village to another in an effort to save dying tribal dialects, scripts and folk performances.
The entire body of nearly lost dialects and scripts that was conserved from there will now be a part of a massive digital archive. Folk performances will also be showcased in a two-day open-air public presentation on the university campus, starting Tuesday.
The team visited habitats of communities like Kurmis, Mundaris, Shabars, Santhals in West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura and Birbhum in south Bengal and also documented their visit to the Totos, Bodos, Dhimals, Garos, Ravas and Rajbanshis of north Bengal. The team visited the villagesto conserve their dialects and scripts, which are nearing extinction.
During field work, they witnessed performances like Jugi Jatra, Sitachuri, Lalita Shabar, Churia Churiani that were popular in the folk life of the Jangalmahal tribes even two decades ago, but are now no longer practised because they are not considered entertaining enough anymore and do not get audience.
The research team extensively quarried written scripts in old diaries, faded manuscripts and oral traditions from homes of elderly people, many of whom were also performers of these folk art forms. “Linguists working in the team have deciphered the texts, which are a curious mix of Oriya and Bengali dialects.
They are transcribed in phonemic forms and then translated into English for a wider audience,” said Debashish Bandyopadhyay, head of the department of English and also co-ordinator of the project.
The project, because of its uniqueness, has been supported under the departmental research support (DRS) scheme of UGC’s special assistance programme. Vice chancellor and historian Ranjan Chakraborty, has also helped out in the research.
The project and the two day programme, that has been christened, “Performance and the Prospects of Tribal Folkloric Culture of Eastern India”, has generated a lot of attention among international publishers and scholars of indigeneous cultures, who work towards conserving endangered cultures.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News / by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey / TNN / March 20th, 2018